9/11

Good morning. When I set out to write this week’s newsletter a little belatedly, I was just thinking of telling you about new art batt and yarn colorways and a little about our daughter’s wedding last week. Then I remembered that today is the 20th anniversary of the attack on our nation, and it comes at a time of such great difficulty in the world today.

The men who committed the atrocities on 9/11 sought to destroy our freedom. In response, we came together, and we were witness to great heroism. I still think today of the fire fighters running up the stairs of the World Trade Center while everyone else was trying to escape. At the same time, though, I think the terrorists did achieve a little bit of their goal because 9/11 was when we began to value security more greatly than liberty at least to some degree.

I think security and liberty are one of those fundamental tensions in life. We need them both of course, but the danger of valuing security over liberty is that it so easily creates a life of fear, and we are made for greater things.

In the last weeks we have all seen the horrors of what is going on in Afghanistan now. I grieve deeply for everyone there but most especially for the women and girls. Their lives have certainly never been easy, but they had a glimpse of liberty, and now that is gone for them and probably will not return in our lifetimes. We have opportunities they have never had, but we must seize those opportunities while we can.

I am going to step down off my soapbox and tell you about other things now.

Wedding

First of all, our daughter and her new husband got married last Saturday, and the wedding was extraordinarily beautiful. It was crazy-busy right up until the wedding began, but everything came together, and it was a time of great grace. The reception was delightful as well. They were both so full of joy as were we all to share their beautiful day and the beginning of a lifetime together. I’ll share some photos with you once we have them.

New Art Batts

I also wanted to show you a few new art batt colorways. Well, two are new while one is actually back in the shop after a hiatus of several years. That one is Gift of the Magi, and here it is:

There’s also a new art batt colorway my husband created based on Robert Frost’s poem, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” This one is full of so many incredible luxury fibers:

Also created by my husband as something of a challenge is Dance of the Gypsies. He often helps me make art batts as they are ordered, and one morning he suggested that name for my art batt colorway, Wonder. I explained that changing names causes all sorts of problems but asked if he would like to create a new colorway called Dance of the Gypsies. Well, he did, and I think it’s perfect. I can see the swirling skirts and joyful abandon of dancing gypsies when I look at the art batt. Here that one is:

We are now up to 71 different art batt colorways! That’s kind of a lot, isn’t it?

Spin Together

Spin Together is coming up for the third year. It starts on October 2nd, and you can join a team now. It’s a fun, friendly week-long spinning competition. While I’m helping out behind the scenes, I’m not the one in charge this year, so that means that for the first time, I’ll get to participate. I can’t wait! We’ve been carding up extra art batts for the last month for me to spin. Here’s my Spin Together box full of goodies:

New Yarn Colorway

I also wanted to show you a new yarn colorway called Sage. It is a delicate muted green with golden speckles. I dyed Sage on So Silky Sock. Here it is:

I was trying to get these photos before the sun came into the window this morning, but as you can see the sun was just peaking in when I got this last one.

I’ll be dyeing Sage on some more bases soon.

Advent Calendars

I do still have more Yarn Advent Calendars and Spinners’ Advent Calendars available in my shop. You can learn more about them and find them right here.

Yarn Crawl

The North Texas Yarn Crawl is going on now, and I’ll be heading back to On the Lamb in Grapevine for the final afternoon, which is September 19th. I hope to see you there!

Stay well, and happy fiber arts.